Marleh wrote:If anyone has access to World Forge Magazine, I'm told Nob wrote a very comprehensive piece about the monetary systems of each country.

Have been cropping up now and then, and I know a couple of my IG notes have been using the currencies from the WFM article, I'm going to be putting up the names of the various currencies as well as the rough value in "game gold piece" value.

For details on what these things look like, why they're named the way they are, and other details see:
http://www.worldforgemagazine.com and subscribe!
Pretty pictures of the coins should also be coming soon to a pdf version near you!

*Bumb* ...and, what would the currency in the Underdark and it's Cities be? As we know the UD is quite large and spans from Southern M'Chek up to at least Deglos (right?). I'd assume the Underdarkers use any and all currencies for trade. Am I correct?

Have been cropping up now and then, and I know a couple of my IG notes have been using the currencies from the WFM article, I'm going to be putting up the names of the various currencies as well as the rough value in "game gold piece" value.

Kurathene Empire("Old Empire")(Lesser amounts use fractional denominations such as a "half-laurel" for a 25 gp piece)

He's referring to the oddity of having a single coin that has the same value as 10,000 pieces of gold, rather than questioning the actual conversion rate, if I'm not mistaken.

In response to that, I would say that the value of a currency does not necessarily correspond in any way to the value of the medium of exchange (in this case, coins) for that currency. I know that if I melted down the $2 coin I have in my pocket, I sure wouldn't get $2 worth of metal out of it.

If there are forms of legal tender in Avlis I'd be interested in learning more about financial institutions... is there a Kurathene central bank that has gold reserves to back up the value of the currency? How does this relate to the other fiefs, do they use the same imperial bank? Does the bank "print" its own money? Are these forms of currency accepted in other nations? Are the various currencies of a static gold-based value, or are they subject to exchange rates, inflation, and the like?

I'd always assumed everything on Avlis was coinage and the value was in the metal, as per D&D standard.

Avlissian currency is on the whole minted with metal. They're of varying levels of purity and reliability in size/form which means certain countries have more reliable (and thus more universally accepted) coinage. It's similar to how England after Newton took over the mint had the most accepted coinage because he had the best method of measuring and minting them to a reliable standard. A Crown Eagle has value its accorded because it comes from a reliable mint. Paper currency like bank notes exist for really high denominations of payment that are unreasonable to be carried around in any fashion, but that's more an exception than the rule.

The conversion rates are an OOC consideration as much as anything. The notion that someone would be carrying around a million pieces of gold is ridiculous, thus the "generic" NWN measurement of gp in game is more reasonably represented as various denominations. There's no "generic gold piece".

Remember in PnP D&D ten thousand gold pieces a mint of money. Whereas in NWN-Avlis it's barely a month's rent. One NWN "GP" is probably more akin to a copper piece in PnP.

"Andrinor grant me the patience not to kill those who screw things up through stupidity, the power to incinerate those who screw things up on purpose, and the wisdom to distinguish between one and the other." -The War Mage's Serenity Prayer

Except a copper piece is only 1/10 of a silver piece and a silver piece is only 1/10 of a gold piece.

10 * 10 = 100

IE: 100 NWN gp = 100 cp = 10 sp = 1 gp = 1/100 gold crown

Anyway, 10,000 gp is still 10,000 gp. If the coinage values are literal amounts of metal, and a NWN Avlis gp is 1/50th of a lb just like in D&D, then a 10,000 gp "coin" is either going to weigh 200 pounds, or be made out of platinum and weigh 20 lbs (which would make "golden crown" a misnomer).

That said, my character walks around with 40 tons of gold by that measure.

Anyway, just thought it was a fun point to bring up, not looking to belabor it.

theP wrote:...and, what would the currency in the Underdark and its Cities be? As we know the UD is quite large and spans from Southern M'Chek up to at least Deglos (right?). I'd assume the Underdarkers use any and all currencies for trade. Am I correct?